Textile Industry of Mumbai
Textile industry of Mumbai
Girangaon (Marathi: गिरणगाव, literally "mill village") was a name commonly used to refer to an area now part of central Mumbai, India, which at one time had almost 130 textile mills, with the majority being cotton mills. The mills of Girangaon contributed significantly to the prosperity and growth of Mumbai during the later nineteenth century and for the transformation of Mumbai into a major industrial metropolis.[1] Girangaon covered an area of 600 acres (2.4 km2), not including the workers' housing. The mill workers lived in a community, and they fostered a unique culture which shaped Mumbai at the turn of the twentieth century. This textile industry flourished until the early 1980s, after which most of the mills were shut down, as the owners deemed them unprofitable and declared they were incapable of paying their workers' wages.
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Origins
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It was in the late 17th century when cotton trade between Mumbai and China began.. The riches derived from selling the Chinese opium during British colonial rule, was later used to finance the cotton trade. Cotton trade really took off with the establishment of a rail link to Thana in 1853 and then to Deccan in 1863. The rail link allowed raw cotton to be transported from its most important growing areas (Nagpur) to Mumbai. A positive outcome of the large quantities of cotton coming into Bombay was the founding of warehouses between the railway line and the port at the Cotton Green dockyard, Sewri.
All these elements gave Bombay an inherent advantage in the world cotton trade. Initially Bombay was only a trading post, but in 1854 with the establishment of the first cotton mill -“Bombay Spinning And Weaving company” at Tardeo in central Bombay - Bombay had stared the transition from trading to manufacturing. Encouraged by the success of the first cotton mill, the local businessmen quickly moved from
Girangaon (Marathi: गिरणगाव, literally "mill village") was a name commonly used to refer to an area now part of central Mumbai, India, which at one time had almost 130 textile mills, with the majority being cotton mills. The mills of Girangaon contributed significantly to the prosperity and growth of Mumbai during the later nineteenth century and for the transformation of Mumbai into a major industrial metropolis.[1] Girangaon covered an area of 600 acres (2.4 km2), not including the workers' housing. The mill workers lived in a community, and they fostered a unique culture which shaped Mumbai at the turn of the twentieth century. This textile industry flourished until the early 1980s, after which most of the mills were shut down, as the owners deemed them unprofitable and declared they were incapable of paying their workers' wages.
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Origins
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It was in the late 17th century when cotton trade between Mumbai and China began.. The riches derived from selling the Chinese opium during British colonial rule, was later used to finance the cotton trade. Cotton trade really took off with the establishment of a rail link to Thana in 1853 and then to Deccan in 1863. The rail link allowed raw cotton to be transported from its most important growing areas (Nagpur) to Mumbai. A positive outcome of the large quantities of cotton coming into Bombay was the founding of warehouses between the railway line and the port at the Cotton Green dockyard, Sewri.
All these elements gave Bombay an inherent advantage in the world cotton trade. Initially Bombay was only a trading post, but in 1854 with the establishment of the first cotton mill -“Bombay Spinning And Weaving company” at Tardeo in central Bombay - Bombay had stared the transition from trading to manufacturing. Encouraged by the success of the first cotton mill, the local businessmen quickly moved from